The unfair advantage

Prithvi Anand

All 12 teams have played their opening gambits in this World Cup.
There has been little surprise in terms of strategy, and by way of results
too. And the theory of
World Cups being a place for innovations has not
happened. It may be early
days yet.

The only innovation was the 'earpiece controversy' at
Hove the other day. In
one's view, an advantage was sought and a deliberate
attempt was made to
hide it from the opponents, in this case India, and the
authorities, like
the ICC.
The least Hansie Cronje could have done was to
take the umpires into
confidence. Worse, Dr Ali Bacher, such a strong face of
the establishment, tried
to conceal it from the media, whose attendance he seeks
on the minutest of
matters.

One thing about this earpiece situation, which promises
to "speed up the
game": Who are we to know who is linked at the other
end. Is it a coach or
bookmaker?
Even if the intentions are fair, it must be
an unfair advantage to
a fielding team. Everyone knows it is far easier to
assess situation from
beyond the boundary, when you are standing at mid
on and a Tendulkar is
cutting loose. It also diminishes, deglamourises and
de-romanticises the
notion of frail or strong, innovative or drab
captaincy.

One also wonders what would have been the case had an
Indian or Pakistani
captain attempted it. A few debatable decisions from
Javed Akhtar was enough
to send the 'white' force of cricket up in arms. A
Mohammad Azharuddin or a
Wasim Akram would have been dubbed as eternal villains
of cricket.
A typical
supporting case of this situation was the Mark Waugh
and Shane Warne
episode. The two top Australians have confirmed
accepting bribes, but continue
to act indiscreetly, as Warne did the other day on
Arjuna Ranatunga, and
there is suspended ban at best.

Salim Malik, for all
his perceived and
imagined links with shady dealers of cricket, is yet to
be proven guilty.
But he has been pilloried more in the press than the
two Australian
gentlemen, so proud of the green baggy cap, who are guilty
of having direct
links with bookmakers.

To take a wider picture of the situation though, it
must be said the MCC
rule book needs to be thoroughly revised in view of the
technological
innovations which are being experimented everyday. Just
to update those old
rules of 100 years, in some cases, or at best at least
a generation old,
will not help. A complete review of technological
issues waiting in the
pipeline must be handled straightaway and also
unforeseen developments must
be taken into account.
The game has grown too big and
multidimensional for
the ICC and it must take control if the game before this
growing game is torn
apart by unsavoury situations.

Mercifully, if this smacks of a racist attitude, it is
not true of the
British society largely. This melting pot of a society
has accepted people
of different culture and creeds rather well. In the
England-Sri Lanka match,
a great number of Sri Lankans had come draped in their
national flag and
there was a fair bit of national jingoism. Imagine this
happening in a
India-Pakistan match in India. Who would dare to
support the Pakistanis so
openly without any fear of recrimination to follow. In
a way, the western
society is far more amenable to accepting pressures of
different
nationalities than is possible in an increasingly
fascist-like nation that
India is turning to be.

Maybe what British society has already learnt, the
cricket establishment is
yet to learn. They are still warped in that time zone
where things were
viewed with prejudiced blinkers. Hence there is no
attempt to assimilate the
growing Asian presence into the cricket mainstream.

According to an
estimate, everyone of five Britons is either
interested in cricket or is
playing it. It is a huge number, but surprisingly 80 per
cent of this number
belong to men from Asian stock. All of them feel
unwelcome in the British
cricket system. Hence they form their own league and
tournaments and remain
just there. Naturally, there is a simmering discontent.

Many in England have
started to question this philosophy and are wondering
whether it is not English cricket's loss if this talent is allowed to go
unattended and
unwelcome d in the hierarchy.
After all, the country has a past of taking the best
from other countries and
flourishing!